Government for the People by the People?

A President typically can only make a handful of big changes during their time in office. Why not focus on a few changes and run on that?

- Reform our tax code. The 1st Step would be to stop taxing corporations. The concept, although not a sound bite, is rather basic. Corporations don't pay tax they simply pass the cost of taxation onto consumers. Those that argue if the tax is removed corporations will just pocket the savings don't understand capitalism or haven't paid attention to what happened when the federal airline ticket tax lapsed. This one change would reduce government revenue by $320 billion in 2014 while the personal income tax raised $1,394,563,000. How can we make up the shortfall? I don't know maybe we could stop fighting other countries wars? Maybe we could abolish entire departments of the government?

- Repeal the 17th amendment (direct election of Senators).  Like the 18th amendment (probation) the 17th amendment seemed like a good idea at the time but the unintended consequences overly politicized the Senate and changed the balance of power between the legislative branch and states. What would happen? Well for starters Senators no longer have to raise millions of dollars and become beholden to those giving them money.

- Reform medical care. The idea that the government or your employer should provide health insurance makes about as much sense as them providing auto or home owners insurance. The current system is so convoluted it's basically impossible to find out what a doctor's visit or procedure will cost until you are billed. Government creating rules such as making health insurance mandatory, eliminating preexisting condition, removing lifetime caps, letting kids remain on parents plans, basic covered items, malpractice liability caps, etc... Conforms with the principles of government not running anything but serving to create a level playing field for the rest of us. 

- Instant Runoff Voting.  It's an electoral system whereby voters rank candidates in order of preference. In the event that one candidate fails to achieve 50+ percent of the vote, the candidate with the fewest first choice votes is eliminated and these voters second choice is used with the process being repeated until one candidate achieves the required majority. Why? The two parties system was never meant to be so dominant it's actually codified.  IRV would allow voters to vote for who they think the best candidate would be without feeling like they are wasting their vote. A few States already do this outright and many do it with absentee voting.

- In order to accomplish the first goal of eliminating corporate income taxes it would likely be necessary to reduce the size and scope of the Federal government. Do we really need all fifteen cabinet level Departments of the executive branch of government?

Department of the Treasury - Established: 1789

Department of State - Established: 1789

Department of War - Established: 1789  (Became Department of Defense in 1947)

Department of the Interior - Established: 1849

Department of Agriculture - Established: 1862

Department of Justice - Established: 1870

Department of Commerce - Established: 1903

Department of Labor - Established: 1913

Department of Defense - Established: 1947

Department of Health, Education and Welfare - Established: 1953 

Department of Housing and Urban Development - Established: 1965

Department of Transportation - Established: 1966

Department of Energy - Established: 1977

Department of Education - Established: 1979

Department of Veterans Affairs - Established: 1989 (Replaced by the VA in 1930)

Department of Homeland Security - Established: 2002

Why eliminate a huge government agency?  For starts some are clearly ineffective, obsolete, have created more problems than they have solved.  Others are duplicate what the States already do.

I think the following Departments could be massively scaled back it not eliminated: Department of the Interior, Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Labor, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Transportation, Department of Energy, Department of Education and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Lastly I would change the Department of Defense back to the Department of War and the Department of Homeland Security would become the Department of Defense.

Clearly this seems radical but if you break it down, department by department it makes sense.  For example do we really need a department of Agriculture anymore? How many kids does the Federal government educate? Isn't the Department of Transportation just duplicating what the States already do?

The Federal government is the definition of bloat.  Mitt Romney likely lost his bid to become president when he commented that 47% of the population takes from the government.  Since when does stating a fact become insensitive? If you add up everyone who works for the government, collects social security, collects a military pension, etc... You get about 47%.

Democrats who say the top 1% of income earners, who currently pay about 43% of income taxes aren't paying their fair share are absolutely nuts.  Government has gotten too big and with 45% of American's paying no income tax something has to give.  I don't want to crush the poor but right now they have no stake in the game and it’s clear the expansion of government is directly linked with American's wanting their government to do more without them having to pay for it.  This is a recipe for a failed system and there are 20,000,000,000 cracks in our foundation and there is no fix in sight.

A good start toward changing this would be honest and educated the American public that corporations don't pay income tax... They just charge more and give the government your money.